Dave Winer, 56, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and editor of the Scripting News weblog. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

Usually when you read a headline like Is the Verizon iPhone a flop? the answer turns out to be well in some ways yes, and in other ways no. But that's the way I do things. I'm just one person and YMMV but yes indeed, it was a flop, a huge one. A miscalculation and a misunderstanding of what people buy when they buy an iPhone and what gets them in line and salivating to get their hands on one.

Now my story...

I own both an AT&T iPhone 4 and a Verizon Droid.

Had Verizon offered an iPhone instead of the Droid in November 2009, I would have bought one. As would have millions of others. They likely would have taken the market from AT&T, had they had this product then.

I would have bought it then because I was fed up with the AT&T iPhone's incompetence as a phone.

But since then two things happened.

1. I solved the communication problem by getting the Droid.

2. The problem went away because I hardly ever use a phone for voice anymore, and when I do it's usuallly with Skype.

But for some reason I'm not planning on getting rid of the Droid anytime soon. I'm hassle-averse I guess.

I use the iPhone as a camera and a portable entertainment device. I use the Droid for instant messaging, email and Twitter.

I said it before they shipped, if they offered a deal that let me simplify, and cut costs without sacrificing any of the fun of using an iPhone (it is more fun than the Droid), and let me turn in my Verizon Mifi which I hardly use, then they'd get me as a customer. But the savings would have to be substantial for me to put up with the hassle of dealing with them.

Ahhh the hassle. Forgot that...

If they were as easy to deal with as the people at an Apple store I might be more inclined.

I don't know what they thought we all were doing while they were getting ready to sell their iPhone. Did they think we were all waiting for them? I wonder if they have any numbers of how many Verizon phone users also have iPhones? Would be interesting to know.

Now, what's going to happen from here for Verizon?

Next time there's a refresh, when the iPhone 5 comes out, they must have it at the same time or before AT&T. And then, if the cost to switch is the same as with AT&T, they'll get a lot of new iPhone business.

It's never all that hard to figure this stuff out. Just talk to a few users and listen to what they say.